The seven minutes of work that made Johnny Depp $50 million
This will surprise many, but once upon a time, Johnny Depp was not a blockbuster movie star. He was actually more of a character actor, well-known for his quirky, idiosyncratic performances and his work with acclaimed filmmakers. This is one of the main reasons why so many predicted that the first Pirates of the Caribbean would be a flop. Depp was not experienced in headlining big-budget movies, after all. Well, those predictions aged like milk.
During his widely-publicised court defamation court case in 2022, Depp revealed that he’d never actually seen Pirates of the Caribbean, remarking that it “apparently did quite well”. That is hilariously understating the fact, given that the film was so popular that its 2006 sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, became only the third movie ever to make over a billion worldwide, and the rest of the sequels have been hugely successful too.
Furthermore, for his legendary performance as Captain Jack Sparrow, an instantly iconic character whose mannerisms and personality were mainly shaped by the actor himself, Depp was nominated for an Oscar, and the role turned him into a box office titan, not to mention one of Hollywood’s highest-paid players. It’s been said that Depp’s net worth was as much as $600million around the peak of his career, and he was paid a staggering $55m to star in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
On another occasion, he was allegedly paid a similar figure of $50m for a movie… despite only having around seven minutes of screen time. Well, if nothing else, that’s a real testament to just how much of a megastar Depp was at the peak of his career. The film in question? Alice in Wonderland, directed by Depp’s friend and frequent collaborator, Tim Burton.
In the movie, Depp played the Mad Hatter, and despite his role being very much a supporting one, he was placed front and centre throughout the marketing campaign. Back in those days, getting Depp into any movie was a real coup – not that Burton would have needed to try hard, given that this was the seventh time the pair had collaborated – and it seems likely that Depp’s role played a part in Alice in Wonderland making over a billion at the box office.
After all, it’s always been incredibly surprising that the film did quite so well. Burton is a well-loved director but hardly a box-office superstar. The original Alice in Wonderland isn’t one of the most famous Disney films, and it was never particularly well-liked, so Depp’s presence seems like the most logical explanation for the movie’s huge box office success.
Depp’s turn as the Mad Hatter was one of the film’s highlights and arguably one of Depp’s most underrated performances. Depp did far too many hyperactive Captain Jack-esque performances post Pirates of the Caribbean, but The Mad Hatter remains one of the few times outside of the Pirates films where this approach really worked.
A $50m paycheck for seven minutes of screen-time was pretty excessive, but it seems to have paid off for Disney, as the film was the second-highest earner of 2010 at the global box office.
